[English version] BOREDOM IS COUNTER REVOLUTIONARY - Brainstorming for the imagination

BOREDOM IS COUNTER REVOLUTIONARY

- Brainstorming for the imagination

BOREDOM IS COUNTER REVOLUTIONARY - Brainstorming for the imagination.pdf

Fernand Kim

 (Blogger. The one who has free souls hoping to be bohemian travelers. In December 2018, I stayed in Paris for 1 month and in solidarity with yellow vests comrades on the fields. Because I can't forget the shocks and deep impressions brought by yellow vests movement, I'm still wandering around the stars of Earth, along with my yellow vests which somewhere in my heart.)

 In the frozen world, the wildfires which set by yellow vests movement have been burning for 10 months. This text is the story which for ‘brainstorming’ about how the yellow vest movement, which has broken through the boredom for 50 years after May 68, has stimulated me and this world. Faced with the self-proclaimed perfect answers overload situations, this is a process for posing more essential questions. This text is full of questions, and there is no perfect answers anywhere. But, this is also facts. The ancient movement which as similar as ancient system doesn't have any perfect answers. We only have the praxis and yellow vests who fighting on the streets.

December 27, 2018. University of Paris X (Nanterre). 

Photo by : Fernand Kim

“The state robs your life.”

 “What is interesting in your action is that it puts the imagination in power. You have a limited imagination like everyone else, but you have many more ideas than your elders. ... The working class has often imagined new means of struggle, but always according to the precise situation in which it was located. ... You, you have a much affluent imagination, and the formulas we read on the walls of the Sorbonne prove it. Something has come out of you that surprises, jostles, denies everything that made our society what it is today. This is what I will call the extension of the field of possibilities.”

- Sartre's speaking in which an interview with Daniel Cohn-Bendit by Jean-Paul Sartre (1968)

“We want to be actors of our own lives.”

 The above is the slogans which yellow vests have been shouting. Macron got on theirs nerve that has been endured for 50 years since May 68. At now, Macronist France is the most oppressive systems since the Algerian National Liberation War. But, neither Elysee Palace's makeshifts, nor remarkable repression and state violence in the history of social movements, was able to quell the rage of the revolting people. Because the demonstrators had no leaders, the government could not negotiate with them such as it was did with trade union's bureaucracy. Yellow vests continue to march toward 'the beach which under the paving stones'. At ronds-points and toll gates, yellow vests created the types of new social practices. Direct action, mainly based on ronds-points and toll gates, was the opportunity leaping forward for people, who were only the audiences of social movements and mass demonstrations, to enter the stage of their own lives as the main actors. In the ancient movements, the ancient regimes, the people that the un-lightened in these huge structures formed a community of mutual assistance, direct democracy and solidarity in the rounds-points. It was that every people stand tall holding their head up as the protagonist of life against the inequal world.

December 19, 2018. Near the Station of Robespierre, the Road of ‘Revolution’. Photo by : Fernand Kim

“All revolts have their own reasons.”

 “before the movement of yellow vests shows that together, 'we can change everything', ... Not so long ago, I thought of committing suicide because I did not come out of it(poor daily life, a miserable reality). But now, I made a lot of friends here.”

- Marie France

 “this movement advances to the citizens' assemblies. The non-organization of the movement is its strength and weakness. We must all agree, with a stricter organization, we would have been faster.” 

- Priscillia Ludosky

Yellow Vests : Fantasy or Sprout

 Yellow vests movement cannot be analyzed by the traditional political classification (left or right wings). It doesn't move based on the homogeneity of 'class'. It must be viewed as a 'heterogeneous' community. Thus, the elitist silly questions, 'Is the yellow vests movement a class struggles?', in itself, just reveals its own shabby dogmatism. And it is also same silly questions to point out “the crisis of leaderships”. Because the movement has declared “no leaders” since its inception. And symbolically, this is manifested in the self-expressions as a 'yellow vests' rather than trade unions vests or a red flags. Visualizations of the invisible parts, people's leaps forward that have been shrouded for 50 years of political degenerations. In here, the neo-bonapartism ruling styles of Macron's regimes added fuel to the fires. By the yellow vests movement, 'Macronism' has already failed. Traditionally, the political terrains that the Socialist party-Republican party bisected were broken down, and the extreme right-wings party has catched political vacancy(opportunity). But no where, there is no political power to fill the rage people's revolutionary thirsts. The CGT(General Confederation of Labour in France), which already has political citizenship, falls far short of the dynamics of yellow vests. Therefore, yellow vests doesn't have positive viewpoints to the trade unions bureaucrats. It is because the bureaucrats are too much busy negotiating with Macron's regimes at Elysee Palace. ‘Don't only look at us, join us! let's fight together!’, shouting like this, even some yellow vests refused to vote in the last European parliamentary elections and went out into the streets. 

 Yellow vests movement is one of the important examples by itself that when the bourgeois democracy don't represents, at its very least, the desires of the masses and the prospects of a new society, how can those explode if those are accumulated over decades. And unfortunately, the established ancient movement has no ability, no prospect, no attitude to synthesize it. Now it is time to must reflect again on the political-sociological backgrounds of this assertions and the shabby praxis of the ancient movement, rather than having cynical response on the shouting of “NO central leaders.”

 Yellow vests movement had emerged, catching the political vacancy(opportunity). But, we can't yet certain that whether the leaps forward of yellow vests who became the protagonists of their own life at the ronds-points, will be just fantasy or, 'sprout' of the new movement. But at least, in the context of observing those who consistently praxis 'self-organization' and transcending themselves, it seems to be closer to the latter. Will can the praxis experiences of the yellow vests movement advance to the formations of social blocks against the capitalist systems? Where is the exit that yellow vests movement heading for in the dialectics of 'anti-political' and 'imaginations'? The leaps forward of newness that shocked the world with the keyword 'self-liberation'. But that newness isn't to be caught at hand immediately. And the dogmatists never can catch that kinds of newness. Will can yellow vests movement unravel the twisted skeins of threads? Did they unraveling the skeins of threads? Or twisting?

 “I think this is the special question that the yellow vest movement give appeal at anti-government, anti-system, and anti-capitalist movements around the world. It is a movement to develop into a challenge to impossibility, an all-out challenge to the system. Ironically, we are in a flood of too many right answers. In the flood of these things, we need not the right answers but the philosophically correct question. We have to give newly appeal throughout the new question. Because, how to throw a question, what kind of struggle to unfold under any slogan may be the deciding factor for a huge stream of history going forward. What should be our question? How much we imagine another world? How freely we imagine?”

- Fernand Kim, "I am a barricade myself!": Yellow Vests movement spreading like wildfire

 “Hope is the leash of submission. When power’s boiler is in danger of exploding, it uses its safety-valve to lower the pressure. It seems to change; in fact it only adapts itself and resolves its difficulties. There is no authority which does not see, rising against it, an authority which is similar but which passes for its opposite. But nothing is more dangerous for the principle of hierarchical government than the merciless confrontation of two powers driven by a rage for total annihilation. In such a conflict, the tidal wave of fanaticism carries away the most stable values. ... History, however, offers not one example of a titanic conflict which has not opportunely defused and turned into a comic-opera battle. What is the source of this decompression? The agreement on matters of principle which is implicitly reached by the warring powers.”

- Raoul Vaneigem, “The revolution of Everyday Life”

Re-appropriation

March 16, 2019. Avenue des Champs-Élysées, Photo by : Philippe Rosenpick

“Don’t demand anything, just take ALL”

 In the context of the reconstruction of social discourses, yellow vests movement is functioning as a 'language of resistances' against the systems. “End of the world, end of the month, same problems, same guilty, same struggles”, with this slogan, the waves of yellow vests has become one of the social movement icons by itself. The so-called 'reappropriation' struggles that took place on the Champs-Elysées on March 16 is a prominent examples. Yellow vests and black blocks have named attacks on luxury shops and restaurants as ‘reappropriation’. This was expressed in these slogans. : such as 'because the government abolished the wealth tax (ISF), we will take the wealth tax directly. Our struggles are spontaneous increase of minimum wage. It's great free party.’

 “Symbolically, Saturday's looting is yet another way of returning class domination. ... when the yellow vests want it, they snatch it at once, without asking, and making them(the riches) tremble. Yellow vests do not plunder to conform to their luxury ideal, but to destroy their model, because their ideal crushes them.”

- <ACTA>, “MARCH 16: THE WAR OF THE POOR - A political reflection on the looting”, Articles of March 26

 “... Social criticism should use a new language. ... It is inevitably a "language of resistances" characterized by dialectic of contents and forms, and the style of negations. ... The situationists group sought to create such a 'new' language through the examples of inverting existing relationships between the concepts. Its envisioning makes semantic contents unfamiliar and captures new ideas subversive, had been called as 'détournement' of concepts by the situationists. ... Such works should be called as breaking the traditional frame of semantics, as it is to 'create' the words that is being 'hijacked'. Situationists understand as that these 'language works' through the 'hijacking' of concepts is as a 'violent acts' that disturbs all existing orders. Thus, Guy Debord cognizes those 'violent acts' as the form of social criticism. ... 'Violent acts' are based on the redefinition and 'hijacking' of the concept of violence. ... It can be paraphrased to be a creative and uncompromising subversive acts, facing with the common semantics and everyday situations(that is, language rules and game rules). The goals of these acts are to enhance the individual's true expressive power through 'rule violations', to restore lost or disconnected communications and to change the basic frames of classification and recognition. ... Because of its same orients, 'violences' are concatenated with the concepts of 'subversion'. ... The subversive acts of the situationists aims to change the ‘rules of the rules’, that is, change the basic frames of thinking, perceptions and classifications about the world.”

- Ingrid Gilcher-Holtey, “1968. A journey through time”

Beauty is in the street - Brainstorming for the imagination

December 27, 2018. University of Paris X (Nanterre).

Painting by : Kouka, Photo by : Fernand Kim

“Beauty save to the world.”

 This is the one of the graffiti painted on the Maurice Allais Building in the University of Paris 10th, as joint projects between the Louvre museum, University of Paris 10th and Street Artists in May 2018. It was part of a planning project to commemorate the 50th anniversary of May 68, by homage to the exhibited works in Louvre museum through the street art.  The photo above is the work of Franco-Congolese artist Kouka. At the bottom of the work, it is papered with graffiti that asking philosophical questions. Its contents are as follows. I was more impressed by the graffiti below than the original work.

 “Beauty is in the street. The consumption of so-called 'beautiful' images hurts artists. what is a work of art? It is Jean-Claude 'Vandal'. Greek antiquity is not yours. "Even me, I'm against the selection(government's education destructive policy)!". In sabotage, there is beauty. Shit the museification(becoming the museum)! Long live the zbeulification(huge chaos)!”

 As I prepared the pre-text, I had asked for to the local france yellow vests comrades and participants(applicants) their preliminary questions about what they would like to talking about briefly and what their own viewpoints about yellow vests movement, at the free conference. That contents are as follows. Based on these, let's playing brainstorming, free conference and general Q & A. Where can we make the intersections with the dynamics of the yellow vests and the imaginations of May 68?

 “We have become slaves to an elitist capitalist system. And yellow vests represent recovered liberty, equality and fraternity. 'The mere impulse of appetite is slavery, while obedience to the law we prescribe to ourselves is liberty.' (Rousseau, 'the Social Contract')”

 “Our political system is by no means democratic. We want to reform the system that benefits, in terms of its laws, only the richest. The media are all in the pay of the big multinationals to which they belong, and therefore highlight the policies they promote. We want the independence of the media and they belong to the people. They are reforming France, as in the days of Tatcher (England) and privatize everything. Our economic and political system depends on the EU, the creation of the USA. We want to regain our sovereignty and get out of the EU.”

 “The moments that visualization of the poverty shines. And another darkness in those lights.”, “About the possibility and limits of revolutionary methodologies, reformation and reparticipation of revolution”, “Anti-capitalist struggles”, “Challenge to the impossible”, “Mass demonstrations, like still active volcanoes”, “Free”

* Read at the follows, with the text above. (Read ahead with the pre-text, which will help you to keep the meeting full and rich.)

1. [English Version] Contribution texts 2019. January

https://emmanuelmacrondemission.tistory.com/125

"I am a barricade myself!": Yellow vest movement spreading like wildfire.

2. [English Version] Contribution texts 2019. April

https://emmanuelmacrondemission.tistory.com/175

“We are here! Even if Macron doesn't want it, we are here!”

3. [Version française] Textes de contributions 2019. avril

https://emmanuelmacrondemission.tistory.com/177

“On est là ! Même si Macron ne veut pas, nous on est là !”

4. [Version française] 2019. Août

https://emmanuelmacrondemission.tistory.com/247

Generalisation du mouvement du gilet jaune

- Resume et extraits de news version traduite

(si peu d'anglais inclus. so little english included.)

* More informations about free conference